Thursday, 4 February 2016

Whilst it is welcome
that the death sentence on Ashraf Fayadh has been overturned, the sentence of 8
years in prison and 800 lashes is nonetheless a barbaric outrage. It speaks volumes that the British Government
has supplied some $3 billion of weaponry to aid this savage medieval state in
its war against the Yemeni people.

We have a government without
a shred of shame. Of course New Labour
wasn’t an iota better and it was the war criminal himself, Tony Blair, who personally intervened
to prevent a prosecution of BAA for bribing various Saudi royals to obtain contracts. It was in the interests of ‘national security’
we were told, since the Saudi royals objected to the evidence about them being
a bunch of thieving bastards being made public.

It is noticeable that
the President of the so-called ‘Palestinian state’, Mahmoud Abbas, has not
uttered a whisper about this case nor called for Ashraf to be freed. I thought that diplomatic interventions like
this were the only justification for pretending that a Palestinian state
existed. Obviously not.

Nor has His Excellency
Professor Manuel Hassassian, the ‘Ambassador’ of the
fictitious Palestinian state in London had anything to say about Ashraf
Fayadh. I did send a message to him via the
web site of the Palestine mission but for some unknown reason I haven’t received a
reply! I can only assume that the matter
of the proposed execution or now flogging and imprisonment of a fellow Palestinian
poet is too embarrassing for the quisling Palestinian Authority.

However
you can bombard both the Saudis and the representative of the ‘Palestinian state’
with calls for Ashraf to be freed unconditionally. And to also bombard Cameron and his clone
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to speak up and cut the arms supply to this
wretched regime.

I
stand naked every day without any judgment, without anyone needing to blow any
last trump, because I have been sent on in advance. I am Hell’s experiment on
the planet Earth.The
Hell that has been prepared for refugees.
Ashraf Fayadh ~ ‘The
Last of the Line of Refugee Descendants’

Yesterday,
a panel of judges in Saudi Arabia overturned the death sentence of Palestinian artist,
curator, and poet Ashraf Fayadh but upheld the verdict of the crime of
apostasy and sentenced him to eight years in prison and 800 lashes. Fayadh was
ordered to disown his writings, repent and apologize on official Saudi Arabia
national television. His sentence calls for the lashings to be carried out
“50 lashes at a time per session”.

A statement by
Fayadh’s attorney, Abdulrahman Al-Lahim, in response to the ruling.

Stressing
Fayadh’s innocence, his
lawyer, Abdulrahman al-Lahim posted the details of his
sentence on Twitter yesterday after presenting the court with an
application for Kayadh’s release on bail and announced they would launch an
appeal.

The
document concludes with the statement (translated from Arabic):

The
defense appreciates the department’s going back on its previous sentencing
decision, and at the same time we would like to emphasize our conviction of the
innocence of the poet Ashraf Fayyad from all the charges presented against him.
He is in a legally sound position and stands by his defense that has already
been previously heard in the sentencing objection document.

The
Guardiancites Adam
Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch:

“Instead
of beheading Ashraf Fayadh, a Saudi court has ordered a lengthy imprisonment
and flogging. No one should face arrest for peacefully expressing opinions,
much less corporal punishment and prison. Saudi justice officials must urgently
intervene to vacate this unjust sentence.”

And
UK author Irvine Welsh said:

“When
this twisted barbarism is thought of as a compromise, it’s way past time
western governments stopped dealing with this pervert regime.”

Fayadh’s
previous November 17, 2015 sentence of execution by beheading was met with
international outrage and calls for his requital. A world
wide reading of his poems and other writings sponsored by
International Literature Festival Berlin (iLb), supported by
poets, artists, and intellectuals around the world including several Nobel
Prize for Literature laureates, took place in January, and people from all over
the world began uploading videos of themselves readings his poems
on Youtube.

Fayadh
was originally detained by Saudi Arabia’s religious police in August 2013 after
he had an argument with another artist who alleged he had cursed Allah and the
prophet Muhammad. The religious police claimed his
2008 book of poetry Instructions Within promoted atheism.
Fayadh said his book was “just
about me being [a] Palestinian refugee … about cultural and philosophical
issues. But the religious extremists explained it as destructive ideas against
God.”